Hearst Building A Kindle For Magazines

Amazon's
Kindle e-book reader is pretty good for reading books, but lousy
for magazines. So Hearst is building its own, bigger wireless
e-reader,
according to Fortune. Wow!

According to industry insiders, Hearst, which publishes magazines
ranging from Cosmopolitan to Esquire and
newspapers including the financially imperiled San Francisco
Chronicle, has developed a wireless e-reader with a
large-format screen suited to the reading and advertising
requirements of newspapers and magazines. The device and
underlying technology, which other publishers will be allowed to
adapt, is likely to debut this year.

Few details, but it seems like the Hearst e-reader will be about
the size of a sheet of paper -- much larger than the Kindle's
6-inch screen. This will accommodate more text and pictures, but
also -- more important -- ads. It will also probably launch in
black-and-white, like the Kindle, with color coming later,
according to Fortune.

We agree that the Kindle isn't best-suited for magazines, and
that magazine publishers will eventually have to figure out a way
to shift their businesses to digital. But we're not sold on this
idea yet.

It might work for text-heavy magazines like The
Economist. But they're getting marginalized by the Web
already. Meanwhile, black-and-white e-ink displays like the
Kindle's offer nothing for glossy lifestyle mags, where the big,
colorful photos are most of the attraction.

Once color e-reader screen tech is more accessible, there might
be a market for a thin, colorful tablet for consuming electronic
media. But that's a market where Hearst won't just be competing
with the Kindle, but likely some
tablet devices from companies like Apple (AAPL). (Who could
easily blow anything Hearst builds out of the water.)

Maybe they're really onto something big. But it seems that the
Hearsts of the world should focus on making their content
available on as many digital platforms as possible, with as much
quality as possible -- and not making big bets outside their core
competency, like trying to get into the hardware business.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his
personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.